Hollywood Rites of Passage, from Redford and Smith to Siegal and Geffen

It was an odd day, bookended by two events that drew together an amazing swath of Hollywood's older generation. I saw CAA partner Bryan Lourd, DreamWorks' Marvin Levy, and Sundance's Michelle Satter at both events, and while the Lois Smith memorial in the morning and Peggy Siegal-wrangled PBS documentary "Inventing David Geffen" in the evening were very different affairs, they both marked rites of passage.

As always, filmmaker Norman Jewison nailed the tale of how Smith made him --during rehearsals for "Fiddler on the Roof"--go to his first auction to bid for and win Chagall's painting of a fiddler. He remembered Smith as a beacon in red at jammed events--someone he could trust and rely on, who would look after and protect him. That's what her other clients said as well, including Sean Penn, who said that Smith lived her life according to the following quote from William Saroyan:

Lois Smith and Meryl Streep

“In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.

In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”